Forensic healing. I'd never heard of this term until Denese asked me if I would consent to be a practise subject for her training. Easy to agree. And then, I promptly forgot about my forensic healing session. Walking up to her house on a breezy morning, I had some vague idea of a questionnaire and kinesiology and listening to beautiful and soothing music whilst lying comfortably on her massage table.
Denese greeted me, all floating skirts and relaxed, loosely fitting top. She looked beautiful, dressed in the soft shades of the earth. Her living room was warm, due to her fire and the heater. We chatted about forensic healing and what to expect over the next hour or so.
Part science, with the study of the body movement, part intuition, part investigation and part release, forensic healing is designed to allow the practitioner to locate "blocks" by gentle manipulation of her client's arm. As I understand, only women are currently trained to be forensic healers.
The questionnaire was both tedious and amusing, as I find most documents of this type. My warped sense of humour tends to have a field day with some of the earnestly sincere questions that are asked. I often wonder if others out there also enjoying picking fun at these dry and essentially humourless fact-finding statements.
Then on with the first forensic healing. Denese informed me there would be more than one session. She began searching for my blocks. Moving only my right forearm, she began her investigation into my memories. Do not ask me how she does this; all I know is that she identified two intense events in my life - when I was a toddler and when I was fifteen.
The first "block" was fascinating to me. I have always prided myself on remembering - not necessarily names, but faces, facts, friends and family. I have been bothered by my lack of memories as a young child, almost none until I was four or five. Because memories are so important to my sense of self, I have endlessly mulled over this nothingness of early childhood.
Under hypnosis, I have been able to glimpse my "place of origin" - standing in my cot in a bedroom and a flash of myself, in a dress, cardigan and shoes and socks running with a dog in a backyard. I guess I would have been between one and two years of age.
As Denese uncovered this early time of my life, she reacted as if she had been physically slapped. She took a step back from me and drew in a sharp breath. She had seen me, crying in that cot. We discussed this scene. I thought about my position in my family - the youngest of four and the only girl. I know I was adored by my Dad and my next brother up in age. This was Michael - my childhood friend, confidante and companion who tolerated a little sister with endless good humour. And my mother? I know she loved us all, but caught up in her own private hell, she was erratic, unforgiving, inconsistent. As a child, I remember going to Michael for comfort, or Dad. Rarely my Mum. Truth is, I was afraid of her.
So maybe I'd been left in my cot to cry. Fear of desertion has been an all too familiar presence. That terror of mine may have started by a simple act of a harassed mother unable to deal with her four children all at once. Just having this explanation to ponder was immediately helpful. This may have been the key to my missing early remembrances.
I was not that surprised that Denese identified the next traumatic block, which began when I was fifteen. I have spent my life trying to minimise, to lessen, to downplay, to ignore this series of events and the aftermath that continues to cloud so much of what is me.
At eleven years of age, I was the youngest in a large rambling family. Four years later, I was essentially an only child. My two eldest brothers were a thousand kilometres away and my beloved brother Michael was changed forever due to his inability to cope with a move to another city and the inadvertent destruction of our family.
I survived by having two constants in my life - a Cardigan corgi named Snoopy and a Siamese character filled cat, Coco. They remained faithful and loving throughout some pretty awful times, allowing me to unwind and debrief and be assured of their attachment to me. We became a close-knit threesome as they fended off the often nasty and sad realities that made my life miserable.
Then came the bombshell. There was no discussion. We were moving, yet again, the fourth time in five years, into a unit. Mum and Dad had sold the family townhouse to finance a new house back in Queensland. My animals would have to be given away.
I persuaded a family I babysit for to accept my nine-year-old dog and six-year-old cat. I hoped to maintain some contact with them. but even that had to stop. The animals would be heartbroken every time I left them again. The babysitting had to stop.
I'm crying as I write about this. Forty years later. Except now, after the forensic healing, I have decided not to dismiss this grief. I can't. Whether others may think I have created too much out of an event long ago, that is their problem, not mine. My family of origin vanished completely when I was fifteen.
My wound of loss has remained. I am hopeful that now I have chosen to finally "own" this trauma, that it may lessen with the passing of time. So that these beloved four-legged ghosts of the past can take their rightful place in a special compartment of my heart.
And I may heal.
Thank you Denese.
Artist, friend and now Forensic Healer
Snoopy
Coco
Beginning of a new journey
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